Series 8
by EmelineCarter92
Summary: Alternative to series 8. A what if Andrew Lee Potts as the Doctor. 13 lives, that's all a time lord gets, but how is he still alive? The Doctor recently regenerated, Clara is having trouble excepting him as the Doctor, he seems cold and distant, a complete opposite of the man before. And on top of that he doesn't remember her. Rated k for some darker elements.
1. Deep Breath

A T-rex is running rampant through Victorian London. Who is called to Investigate, The Paternoster Gang.

There was only one way the dinosaur had gotten there.  
>Vastra could hear the sound the sound it was making. The familiar wheezing sound.<br>The T-rex spits out the TARDIS, the box spinning out of control on it's side.

**_Some time, earlier, somewhere in the Time Vortex_**

"What's happening." Clara shouted as the begin to spin.

"We're probably crashing." He started flicking switches, going about like she wasn't there. "Right, co-ordinates." He paused. Then he turned to her, brown eyes starting at her. There was something menacing about them. "You girl, are you just going to stand there and be pret'y?"

"Pretty?" Her voice sounded somewhat harsh. "I have a name." She looked at his expression. There was no familiarity in his eyes, as if he was trying to recall her name. "You do know who I am?" Everything was different about him. She knew this was what he does, but her mind couldn't seem to grasp that this was the same man. What tore her heart was that he didn't seem to know who she was. She had told him to remember her.

"Yeah..." He said with a grin. He was hesitant a moment. His smile then faded. "No. Should I?" He turned back to the console. Setting the coordinates were not easy. He was disoriented. There was no awareness in him, to notice that he wasn't alone. That hurt Clara. Her Doctor was gone and this Doctor didn't know her. She knew about regeneration but not what the effects were. He was sort of manic. Hopefully it was a side effect. It had seemed to be what his other regenerations had gone through directly after the process, but being this out of it.

She knows this is what she does, but not what it does to him. Dozens of thoughts came to her mind but it still came back to one in particular.

She had told him to remember her. He didn't even remember her.

As he pressed a lever he suddenly let out a grunt of discomfort and started to fall but he caught himself against the console.

"Doctor!" It was obvious that he was still hurting. She took a step toward him. His back was to her, slightly slumped over.

Without turning round, he stuck his arm out, "No, 'm fine." He straightened up. "Now co-ordiantes, Earth, right?" He turned to Clara, giving her a bright smile.

She smiled back, watching him walk around the console, walk, not run, like she had seen him do many times before. He didn't seem in a state to be running, let alone operating the TARDIS.

"Should you be doing that?" Clara asked.

"Why shouldn't I?"

"You do know what you're doing."

"Of course I know what I'm doing. I'm the Doctor." He pressed another lever.

The console sparked, the whole TARDIS lurching forward. Clara instinctively grabbed the railing and held on tight, ducking to avoid the sparks.

When the movement stopped, Clara slowly got up.

"Oops." Wrong button. "I meant to do tha'."

That smile again. It made Clara want to smile even though she felt miserable, a deep sadness within her. Why did she feel guilty of the urge to smile? She watched his movements. His clothes hung loosely on him. The shirt and become untucked from his trousers, which were bunched up over his boots, almost making him trip. It would have been quite comical in a different situation.

"You seem in quite a hurry. What are we running from?"

"Ah." He clapped his hands together. "I should've told you before...something's following us."

"What's following us?"

"Here's the thing. I dun' quite know yet." He walked to another panel, in exaggerated strides, (probably due to losing a few inches of height.)

The TARDIS lurched again, only slightly, like they were being grabbed out of the air by something.

"WHAT. Are you doing?" Clara shouted, it nearly came out a scream as she grabbed a hold of the railing again. He grabbed hold of the console panel, although this time she didn't know if it was too keep balanced or the pain and disorientation. It seemed to pass quickly. He walked fast to each individual control panel and then to the main controls, pressing all the leavers and buttons. His movements making her dizzy. "Doctor will you slow down?"

"Slow down? That's what I don't do. Just because I'm old, never. Now...this." He stretched his arms out in front of him.

"You really should..."

"I told you I know what I'm doing."

"Do you? To me it looks like you're just pressing a lot of buttons..." Clara shouted as the TARDIS gave one final lurch.

When Clara awoke, she could see a dense fog covering the ground. She could hear the pitter patter of feet. Was it his regenerations running past her? For a few seconds she wondered if she was still in the Doctor's time stream and that she had dreamed that he had gotten her out.

She closed her eyes, wishing it not to be true. But once she closed them, she was afraid to open them again.

'eh. pretty girl." A Yorkshire accent called. Yorkshire. That's where the accent was from. "Wake up." It took her another few seconds to recognize it. Familiar yet unfamiliar at the same time.

Still she did not open her eyes. She could feel him bending over her, his breath on her face.

"Anyone home in there?" He tapped her on the head.

She brushed his hand away. "Hey. Stop it." Opening her eyes, she sat up. Before she could stand out he was heading for the TARDIS doors.

"Doctor!" She called, following after him.

The Doctor stumbled out of the TARDIS, his body still giving off regeneration energy. He collapsed to the ground. He was unfamiliar with his surroundings. He was on an alien planet. While he left in the TARDIS something had followed him through the Vortex. And that wasn't good.

His thoughts were disrupted as a sudden flash of pain shot through his entire body, his head still pounding. Regenerating while escaping Trenzalore had severely weakened him, not just his previous one.

Later in this regeneration he would come to think that was the cause of the change in him. What happened in his last few moments of his previous regeneration influenced the next. Whatever happened on Tenzalore stayed with him. He didn't remember it though and was grateful that he didn't. It sometimes irritated him. He knew everything. Missing a part of your life was like missing someone who had been a big part of your life. That was everybody the Doctor had touched…..or destroyed.

But now in the present, confused and disoriented, he didn't know who he was.

The gang follows the TARDIS. The newly regenerated Doctor, suffering post regeneration emerges from the TARDIS, Clara behind him.

Vastra takes the Doctor and Clara to their residence. While the Doctor rests, Vastra confronts Clara about her prejudiced attitude to the Doctor's changed face. Clara admits that she is struggling to adapt to the new Doctor,due to his stark difference to the previous one, but partically because he doesn't remember who she is. He seems distant and cold. Vastra points out that she shouldn't should be quick to put harsh judgement toward his behaviour, as of the moment he is not stable. Having been inside his mind, Vastra says, his soul is damaged.  
>Clara wonders what this implies.<p>

The Doctor awakens to hear the dinosaur's pleas for help. He leaves the house, gamboling along London's rooftops and stealing a horse to reach the dinosaur. He calls out to assure the creature that he will return it to its proper time, just before it spontaneously combusts. The Doctor then joins Clara and the Paternoster Gang, who have followed him to the river, and learns from Vastra that this is not the first recent incident of spontaneous combustion. The Doctor explains that spontaneous combustion just doesn't randomly happen, there has to be a reason. He then spots an unfazed man across the river and jumps into the water to investigate. Clara returns home with the others to start their own investigations, hoping they will cross the Doctor's path.

The Doctor and Clara find an advert in the newspaper, directing them to meet at a specific restaurant. They reunite, but learn that neither planted the message for the other, as they had both assumed. The Doctor implying, that she was no longer impossible, that she was simply a 'needy game player and a control freak.' They discover that the room is filled with humanoid robots that prevent them leaving. They are then descended into a lair where they see the man from the river surrounded by other idle humanoid robots. The Doctor surmises the man is a long-lived cyborg, but in an unusual sense. It is a robot trying to make itself human by replacing its mechanical parts with biological ones taken from spontaneous combustion victims, including the dinosaur. The robot's own 'face' is only half-covered with skin, exposing part of its 'skull's' mechanisms.

The Doctor seemingly abandons Clara after escaping himself, just as the Half-Faced Man and the other robots begin to awaken. Recalling earlier advice he'd given upstairs, Clara holds her breath to hide herself from the robots. However, she is soon captured and taken to the Half-Faced Man, who questions her about the Doctor's whereabouts. Upon Clara's prompting, he reveals that he is trying to reach the "promised land" by prolonging his life via parts replacements. The Doctor returns for Clara, having actually disguised himself as another of the robots. They signal the Paternoster Gang, who arrive and fight the robots with Clara while the Doctor chases the Half-Faced Man back to the restaurant.

The Half-Faced Man deploys his "escape pod" - in reality, a hot-air balloon made of human skin - lifting the restaurant into the sky with him and the Doctor inside. The Doctor discovers that the Half-Faced Man and parts of the restaurant are from the SS Marie Antoinette, the sister ship to the SS Madame de Pompadour ("The Girl in the Fireplace"). The Doctor claims that the Half-Faced Man has replaced his components so many times that he no longer exists in his original form and that he secretly wants to end his existence. He then warns him that he will either have to kill himself, or the Doctor will be forced to kill him to protect the humans. Clara and the Paternoster Gang are nearly overwhelmed by the other robots when they see them go lifeless. The Half-Faced Man is then shown to be impaled on the spire of Big Ben. The Doctor does not remember if he had pushed the Half-faced-man or if he jumped himself. But it haunts him and presses him to ask Clara if he's a good man. She replies that she doesn't know herself. Later on she will tell him that he tries to be a good man, and that's good enough.

It reassures him and settles his fear, for now.

* * *

><p>After regrouping, Clara finds that the Doctor and the TARDIS have vanished. Vastra later assures her that the Doctor will return, pointing out that Clara - the person who knows the Doctor best - is already prepared to leave. The Doctor does reappear, revealing a new TARDIS control room. He asks Clara if she wants to continue travelling with him. Clara, however, expresses misgivings about the new Doctor's character and is unsure about continuing with him.<p>

"You done now?" Clara asked. She had joined him in the TARDIS.

"Yep. All done."

"Are you sure?" She asked cautiously.

"Twenty-four hours of rest was all I needed. I didn't act too out of it did I?"

"You were acting a lot like your old self at first." Clara said.

"I retain my old personality until the process is complete and my new one' s fully formed." He explained.

"Is the old part of you conscious then?"

"Yes." He focused on the buttons on the console. Clara took this as the end of the conversation and he didn't want to talk about it anymore.

She turned her back to him, starting out into space, drumming her fingers together.

The Doctor looked up from the controls. "Wha's the ma'er?"

Again, his accent was more heavy. She could tell that he was worried.

"Nothing." She told him, uncomfortably. She doubted he believed her, so she said, "It's just that..." But how would he react? Yell, kick her out? No. He wouldn't. She decided she didn't care how he would react. He was the Doctor. Her Doctor. But not her other Doctor. "I...miss him." She told him. "I mean, the other you." A long pause seemed to follow. She sat down in the pilot chair. He sat down next to her. His response was calm and rather quiet. But despite that, it seemed to have some disconcerting edge to it.

"Sorry for your loss." He said without looking at her. It was like he was talking about someone else entirly, instead of himself, like she had lost a relative.

Her phone started ringing.

"Is that your boyfriend?" The Doctor asked.

"I don't have a boyfriend." She responded, stepping out of the TARDIS to take the call.

It was a phone call from the Eleventh Doctor, made moments before his regeneration from his perspective, telling her that his future self will be more afraid than she is, encouraging her to stay.

When the new Doctor asks if she's talking to the Doctor, "I'm standing right in front of ya. When are you ever going to get it? Just look at me."

She leaned forward to get a good look at him. Her own brown ones met his. His eyes were intensifying. She felt the sudden urge to look away, afraid to see what else lay behind those eyes if she stared any deeper. But she didn't look away.

There was a light in his eyes, that she'd always seen. She might have imagined it, but the light seemed to slowly be going out. Like a candle being snuffed out in the rain.

He was there if she looked hard enough. He was standing right in front of her. And he was scared. She put her arms around him. His body instantly tensed, reapedly saying that he was sorry. What was he sorry about?  
>"I guess...I really don't do the hugging thing.'<br>"Well, you're going to have to get used to it." She said cheakly.

She didn't want to accept this man, as the Doctor but in a way she already had. She didn't ask him anymore questions. They just sat in silence, breaking eye contact. Their hands returned to themselves. She didn't know who took their hand away first. She wanted to ask him how he felt. I can't imagine. Dying over, and over, like he does. I have had a hundred, maybe thousands of lives. Though he has had a lot less, nothing can compare to what he has to go through every time he dies.

She couldn't decipher what else it was she saw in his eyes. Still I wonder...(she mentally scolded herself)No more twenty questions Clara. He is the Doctor. I was created to save him.  
>But he had changed so much, she didn't know if she could do this.<br>The real question was, what lay ahead for them now?

"Where are we?" She asked him.

"Yorkshire. I think."

"Makes since. You have a Yorkshire accent." Her curiousity did get the better of her. "Why do you have a Yorkshire accent." She supposed she sort of knew. It was like this regeneration was specially made for her. But that wasn't how it worked, did it? He had no control over his regenerations, but maybe the self-conscious had an influence.

"I dun' know...sometimes I pick up on things." He tried to choose his words carefully. "It was you."

"What was me?" It was her turn to be lost on his meaning.

He refrained from telling her that she was the last thing that he had been thinking about before he died. That's pretty much all he remembered, well apart from dying on Trenzalore, Clara jumping into his time stream, that was all he remembered. There probably wasn't any more to remember, apart from the cause of his death. That was were his mind drew a blank. There were gaps in his memory. He didn't need to bring Clara into this. He just regenerated. Both of them didn't need this right now, so he did what he did best, lie. "Probably the flirty bit." He told her.

"Yeah, so it's all me." Clara said in a way that seemed like a kid being blamed for something another sibling did.

"Clar-a." He said, still prononcing her name wrong.

"It's Claire-a." She corrected.

"That's what I said."

She hung her head in frustration but she couldn't stay mad at him for long. She had to accept him eventually. But what would that come to mean? What was she supposed to do?

For right now, she would do only what she knew. Save the Doctor. After all she was his impossible girl. ALWAYS.

They go for coffee and chips.

"You're buying." She chirps, walking ahead of him, past the TARDIS.

"I don't...I don't have any money." He runs to catch up.


	2. Into the Dalek

The Doctor and Clara land on Skaro, populated by a race of peace-loving Daleks. Ever suspicious of his arch enemies motives, and convinced that their can never be a good Dalek, the Doctor learns of a threat that could literally tear the universe apart.

This universe can't be right. Skaro was destroyed a long time ago. They were in the future.

The Doctor and Clara are trapped in a Temperal Plexus which is a type of void that traps spaceships of all kinds and there is hardly any way to get out of it. While stuck there Clara claims that she saw another TARDIS but the Doctor replies it was just them from either past or future, time rippling back. The Doctor was able to get the TARDIS free by exploding a star. They make an emergency stop at the closest planet. Everything looks normal but The Doctor has his doubts as he hopes nothing happened from what he did to escape the Plexus.

The Doctor and Clara begin to explore the planet they see kids playing with the Daleks. A Dalek then follow them back to the TARDIS and the Doctor immobilizes it. A girl named Tulana scolds The Doctor and asks why he would attack a defenseless Dalek. The Doctor is puzzled by this as Daleks are anything but defenseless and it appears he has landed on a planet where the Daleks are pacifists. This is not good or is it as peaceful Daleks means tons of people will not die. The thing is The Doctor knows their escape from the plexus changed time and it is his fault and unfortunately it is his responsibility to put things right and that means changing the Daleks back to the way they were.  
>Clara thinks that it's a good thing but the Doctor tells her that if things are kept how they are, the Universe will unravel.<p>

"It's not fair."

It was Pompeii all over again, only less weaping. The Doctor thought.

"What happens to the people?"

"They go back to their respective time lines."

"And Tulana?"

"The Daleks whiped out her species centuries ago."  
>"So Tulana never exsisted?"<br>"Never exsisting isn't the same as dying."

Clara nodded, understanding. Never being born was better than dying bloody.

Exterminate! Exterminate the humans. Exterminate!"

"Now there's the Daleks I love to hate."

The Doctor saves Journey Blue, a rebel fighter from her space shuttle which is being attacked by Daleks.  
>He returns her to the rebel command ship Aristotle.<br>He asks Clara if he's a good man. She doesn't know and this frightens him even more, though he doesn't show it.

They are greeted by Journey's uncle, Colonel Morgan Blue, who thanks the Doctor for saving his niece. Journey declares that, he is a 'doctor', that can help their patient, (he introduces Clara as his 'carer" so he doesn't have to.) which is revealed to be a war-torn Dalek they found floating through space who has appeared to have turned good.

Colonel Blue details plans to miniaturize the Doctor, Clara, Journey and two rebel soldiers, Ross and Gretchen, so they can enter the broken Dalek, nicknamed Rusty by the Doctor, to see if they can determine what is making it good.

They discover it was a radiation leak that was changing the Dalek's brain chemistry.  
>Once the Doctor repairs it, the Dalek turns evil again. He is still firm on his belief that Dalek's can't be good after all. That is what they learned.<br>"I could rudy well..."She slaps him. "Slap you." She convinces the Doctor to try to reawaken the good side of the Dalek. They split up, with Clara and Journey heading to reawaken memories of the Dalek's past now being suppressed, and the Doctor heading to the Dalek's consciousness.

Clara manages to awaken Rusty's memory of him seeing the creation of a star, while the Doctor manages to link his mind to Rusty's consciousness, reminding him of the destruction the Daleks caused. However, Rusty associates with the Doctor's own deeply-rooted hatred towards the Dalek race, and he exterminates his fellow Daleks as they attempt to destroy the rebel ship. On leaving the inside of the Dalek, the Doctor parts with Rusty, upset that the Dalek saw only darkness within him and wishing for a 'victory' in creating a good Dalek.

"There is no such thing as a good Dalek." said Rusty, "You are a good Dalek."

The Doctor and Clara depart. Journey asks to come with them, but the Doctor declines, telling her that though she has a kind heart, he wishes that she hadn't been a soldier.

The Doctor returns Clara home.

"You see, the thing is, I don't know if you're a good man." Clara repeated her answer from earlier.' But you try. And I think...that's kind of the point." She exited the TARDIS.


	3. Dead in Dallas

Clara is introduced to Danny Pink at a staff meeting. When she steps into a supply cupboard, The Doctor is waiting with the TARDIS, he needs Clara's help.

The Doctor and Clara go to Dallas, Texas, 2049. Vampires live out in the open. Bodies of young woman are being found drained of blood. Are there really vampires or is it something more sinister?

AN: (alternate title: (The Doctor does Dallas) After this chapter be sure to check out 'Twelve' my series of one shots of how twelve and Clara's relationship grow. Warning it contains some Whouffle.

* * *

><p>2049<p>

The TARDIS materialized back into existence. A dark haired man stepped out, followed by a short structured woman. She came up a little past his shoulders, but not by much.

She would have to get used to his change in hight, among other things.

"Dallas, Texas. 2049. Imagine, just ten years from now you'll be landing on Mars."

Clara looked at him wide eyed, "Can we go there sometime?"

"No. Already been."

She didn't know if he'd meant he'd been to the Mars landing or been there too many times. "On the other hand, the ice warriors might not be too happy."

They entered a small bar and grill.

Clara had a seat in a booth while the Doctor went up to the bar. She asked him if he wanted some coffee. Without an answer she poured him a cup anyway.

She seemed to keep eyeing a man sitting two seats down from the Doctor. The man was rather pale looking and he was wearing sunglasses.

"He's a vampire." The young waitress whispered to the Doctor.

"Really?" The Doctor said with excitement.

He started chatting up a waitress. Clara was getting impatient. Her stomach was starting to grumble.

Finally he came over and the waitress took their order. Well, the Doctor's order.

When their food arrived Clara took a slice of pizza, setting it onto her plate. It didn't look quite appetizing. "Why did you order everything on?"

"Because plain is just too. .plain."

Clara gave a sigh, giving up. She took a bite.

Just as the Doctor was about to take a bite of pizza, a scream that sounded nearby cut through the air.

"Time to run again?" Clara said. Before she slid out of the booth the Doctor was already on his feet.

The scream had come from outside. Around the back of the of the restaurant a woman who was taking out the garbage, was staring down at the ground. It took a few seconds for Clara to realize what she was staring at. A pair of legs, feet clad in high heels were sticking out from a pile of garbage bags.

The police soon arrived, surprisingly quick. They discovered that the woman's body was drained of blood.

"You can't pretend you're a PI." Clara told the Doctor. "What are we reverting to, identify theft?"

"It worked on Supernatural. Those handsome devils."

A female officer approached them. "Sheriff Jacqulyn Daniels." She said.

"Sheriff Daniels, is it?" With some effort the Doctor shifted his attention. "I'm AAgent Townes." He said pulling out his psychic paper, "this is Van Zandt, she's new."

"Is that supposed to be some sort of joke?" The Sheriff asked.

Clara cocked an eyebrow. "Beg pardon?"

The Sheriff shot them a look. "Your names."

"Look, are you suggesting.."

"Either you're pulling my leg, " The Sheriff continued, "Or your superior officer has one warped sense of humor."

The Doctor sighed. "Yeah, and people probably call you Jackie, right?"

"They call me Sheriff Daniels." The phone she carried on her started riniging. "Look can you excuse me a moment?"

"Sure, take your time." The Doctor said. He waited, watching her walk away from the scene.

"Hey, do you think she..."

"Stop." Clara said. "Just stop."

"I'm just saying, they write songs about all this stuff."

"They also write songs about going to jail." Clara said. "Let's just try not to get arrested, ok?"

The sheriff came back. "All right, let's get to it." The officer gave him the ok to check the body. "Two puncture wounds, left side of the throat." The Doctor stated. "The only visible injury." He lifted one of the dead girl's hands.

"Maybe she scratched him." Clara suggested.

"Not as much blood as you'd think there should be." The Doctor cleared his throat. "Not nearly enough. You know what they look like, on her neck there? Bite marks. Like, ah fangs."

"You mean some sort of animal attacked her?" asked Clara.

"No." The Doctor angled his head up at her, dark eyes wide and bright. "Come on Clara, you know what it looks like."

"It looks like a date that went a bit over the top."Clara said. "Doesn't look like she put up much of a fight though. Maybe she knew her attacker or she had something in her system to dull her senses and let her attack her. with some sort of weapon."

"Yeah, or the killer had incisors filed down to points." Sheriff Daniels said.

"Case in point, I think we can narrow it down to a list of suspects. We're looking at vampire." He turned to one of the other officers. "Put an APB out on Dracula." Clara gave him a look. "I'm just saying it looks like your classic vampire bite." The Doctor said.

"Or we should find out if she was...possibly seeing someone with a heart beat." Clara said still skeptical.

"Just saying." The Doctor repeated.

Next they went to the police station and waited to talk to the victim's mother.

Clara was doing research on the office computer. "Did you know there are dozens of websites on vampirism and any number of them have instructions on how to drink from a victim."

The Doctor cocked his head. "And this surprises you because?"

Clara ignored him.

Sheriff Pegborn entered the room. "I've got a couple of names we may want to look at but meanwhile Tara Jenkins' mother just came in."

"I'll talk to her." Clara pushed back from the desk. "You do the research, I'll do the people thing." She said to the Doctor.

On her way out, she decided to look back at him, expecting him to refuse. When she gave him a glance, there was something that appeared to be an expression of relief on his face. He seemed reserved. Clara hoped he wouldn't always be like that. Her flustered clever boy, now a quiet, grumpy old man.

He liked keeping to himself. He prefered to do research and not talk to someone he didn't know, let alone someone who's just lost a loved one. He could talk to Clara. He found it easy. Course he talked to someone if necessary. I'd do anything necessary. He found himself thinking. But would he actually?

The sheer aloneness made him think. He didn't want to have to. So he busied himself. Despite that he still thought.

"Mrs. Jenkins. I'm Dectective Van Zandt" Clara said. It was the Doctor's idea. Somehow she had to get him to stop watching Supernatural.

Mrs. Jenkins eyes looked exhausted as they lifted to Clara's, a combination of grief, guilt, and futigue. Clara would have expected those feelings in the Doctor's eyes. But she had detected nothing. "You're helping with...what happened to Tara."

"That's right. I'm very sorry for your loss."

"Thank you. Will I be able to see her?"

"I think I can arrange that for you."

"Can you tell me how she...what happened to her." Mrs. Jenkins's voice hitched. "They won't tell me anything. It's worse not knowing."

"She was killed. She was found in an alley. We believe she knew her killer. There were no signs that she..suffered." Clara knew Mrs. Jenkins was going to ask.

"An accident then?" There was peading in the mother's voice. "Something that got out of hand?"

"No. I'm sorry. We don't believe that it was an accident. What do you know about your daughter's recent activities, her compmanions, the men in her life?"

"I wouldn't know. We don't comunicate much. I wasn't a good mother."

"That has to be the most rubbish thing I've ever heard." Clara said.

"I wasn't. I was twenty when she was born. And I wasn't a good mother. It was all having parties and having fun and where can we go next. When I left her father we used her as a weapon. I remarried. Now I have an eight year old daughter. I'm a good mother to her but I lost Tara long ago. Now I can never get her back."

"I recently lost a friend." Clara blurted out. "He..died."

"It's not the same as losing a child."

"No, I suppose it's not." She mentally cursed herself for saying the wrong thing.

"The friend you lost, was he killed?"

"Yes. And I loved him very much. But the man I'm with now...he feels like...a replacement." Clara shook her head. "Sorry. There's more important matters than my problems. I want to help find who killed your daughter, not only to get justice for her, but it'll help make me better."

Mrs. Jenkins nodded.

Something came to Clara's mind. "Did she have any particular interest in the occult by any chance?'

"The occult? I can't say. She went through a phase several years ago where she paid Psycics great gobs of money. She dambled in Wicca..

"That's witchcraft." Clara said.

"But that was when she was a teenager. You know how teenagers are."

"They can be very akward years." Clara recalled several memories of her 'rebel' phase. She even experimented with her room mate at Univeristy. Nina her name was. Hey, she was trying to find herself. She had had a lot of relationships, just more than half of them were men.

"She said there were too many rules and wanted to take the easy way out, for some magic potion to make everything perfect...will you find who killed her?"

"I'll find him."

The Doctor and Clara stayed at a small Inn. They had separate rooms of course but the were jointed rooms.

Both of them hardly gotten any sleep.

The next morning, another female victim was found. Finding Tara's killer had been put on hold.

"The bodies been drained like the others." The coroner said. "Probably a vampire gone rogue."

"What's with your lots fascination with vampires?" The Doctor asked.

"They came out of hiding twenty-four years ago. Where have you been living, in a cave?" said the coroner.

"No. Not recently." said the Doctor. "I was in a cave once. Met some nice lovely...cave people." His Yorkshire accent sounded heavy, even his tone in voice sounded different. If Clara didn't know any better, to her it seemed like he was an entirely different person. He used different tones to get certain things that he wanted. "At first I didn't know which one of you apes were going to make it. Then you take a bite of an apple you're not supposed to and invent trouser."

Both Clara and the coroner looked at him peculiarly.

"Just don't touch the body." The little man said and swiftly left the room.

Clara watched him go. When she turned her attention back to the Doctor he was pulling back the sheet covering the cadaver. "Doctor, he told you not to touch it." She reminded him.

There was one other thing about him that didn't change. He couldn't resist touching something that was interesting. If the Doctor thought a dead body was interesting...she felt a shutter within her.

Their first trip and she was starting to notice. He seemed a bit...darker. A part of him that was unrecognisable. Like most would, she turned a blind eye toward it. She could still sense something was wrong, with him. She couldn't quite but a finger on it.

He examined the bite marks on the victim's neck. "Not consistent with a space fish."

"I'd believe that over vampires." Clara said.

"Hmm." He covered the body back up, looking over at Clara. "You hungry? Let's do lunch."

After lunch, yet another body was found. Clara talked to the victim's husband, Richard Savio. His wife had been working at an underground club. All of the female victims had in some way been connected to it.

They were accompanied by Sheriff Daniels and one of her officers, McNab. The Doctor didn't seem to thrilled about it.

"I thought we could use another pair of eyes." Daniels said. "You know, strength in numbers."

"I specialize in raiding clubs." McNab said.

"You've only raided one and it wasn't a vampire one." said Daniels.

"Ok, repeat after me." Clara said, "Vampires do not exsist."

"Vampires do not exist." McNab recited.

Clara turned to the Doctor, "What's that look for?"

"Speculation. Most legends have basis of fact. Vlad the impalor, from Dracula lore. It's intersetin, dun ye think?"

"It's interesting that I'm surrounded by lamebrains."

"Lamebrains to some." Said the Doctor. "open minded to others."

"Maybe we should have stopped by the market and picked up some garlic and ease those open minds."

"Really?" The Doctor said. Clara gave him a stony stare. "Tha' means no." He muttered.

They paused as they reached the entrance of the underground club.

"Stick together through the tunnels." Daniels ordered. "We can work in pairs once we get to the club."

"No." The Doctor said, "We split up. Tha' way we can cover more ground." He didn't take well to someone else's authority.

Clara went to the bar.

"What can I get you?" The woman bartender asked.

"Whoever's in charge."

"Is there a problem?"

"There will be if you don't get me whoever runs this place." She placed the psychic paper on the table.

"Sure." The bartender said. She put a hand over the ear piece she was wearing. "Allessria. I've got a cop at station three looking for the manager. Sure thing." She removed her hand. "He'll be right down."

She knew what she saw when she looked at him. The same look she had seen in the Doctor's eyes. She saw it in his pitch-dark eyes. She saw a stranger. His intentions were the same though, helping people, saving planets, and civilizations. Was that enough to accept him as the Doctor? It was more than just the physical changes, she sort of accepted those. She saw a darkness in those eyes. Maybe it's always been there. The monster hiding within him more prominent. She pushed the thought aside. He was not a monster, just a wounded soul.

The man before her was the monster. He led her back, away from the crowd, to a door marked private. Clara didn't notice she was being watched, closely and carefully.

"It's an honor that you're here. Wha can I get you to drink?"

"This isn't a social call."

"No, of course not. " Despite her answer he poured two glasses. "Well then what did you call for?"

"Tara Jenkins. She was murdered a few days ago. She went to your club."

"A lot of woman come to my club."

"A lot of woman who come to your club end up dead."

Allessria just smiled. "Just three woman."

"Did you have any connection with them?" Clara asked.

"You can stop the cop act." He said. "I've been watching you...and him. But mostly you."

"You didn't answer my question."

"I did know Tara. She would often come alone." He leaned closer to Clara, making the hair on the back of her neck prickle. "As I call she was going to meet a friend or friends. I don't believe she did."

"Underground clubs don't work that way."

"Things change." He watched her over his glass as he took a sip." As do times."

"And how much time did you spend with Tara?"

"Quite a lot on her last visit. I gave her a tour, bought her a few drinks. Danced with her."

"Did you tell her you were a vampire?" Clara demanded. "That you could turn her?"

"Yes, to the first. It's part of the atmosphere. Do you believe in vampires Clara?"

"I believe in the susceptible, the foolish and those who exploit them."

"Is there anything else?"

"Did you see Tara leaving with anyone in particular?"

"I can't say that I did. I believed she danced with any number of people. Feel free to ask my staff and I'll be happy to ask myself."

"You do that."

"Here, let me give you my card." As he passed it over to Clara, his fingers brushed down her palm, lingered for just a moment. Then he smiled. "I tend to sleep days."

Clara went back to the club alone later that night. Normally she didn't wonder off when he told her not to. She didn't listen to him like she used to. He was different. He had changed after all, and she herself found herself changing, but into what?

"Alone this time?" The bouncer sneered.

"Yeah," She punched him and he bent over. "Just little old me." She walked through the crowd. She was lead to the back room.

"Enter, Allessria." He said to the voice command. Inside candles were lit and the walls were lined with screens displaying images of various sections of the club.

"Please, have a seat." He motioned toward a chair across from him. Clara pulled in the odd looking chair and sat down.

Clara looked around, gazing at the screens. "Some view."

"My way of being surrounded and alone at the same time. You'd understand that."

"You talk as if you know me. You look at me as though you do. But you don't."

"Oh, I think I do. I saw the understanding of violence, of power, and the taste for it in you. You have that in common with him. Wine?"

"No." Despite her answer he poured two glasses.

The Doctor had missed something. He asked the Inn keeper how many floors the Inn had.

"Four, not including the basement."

"Ok, if you're a vampire and didn't like sunlight where would you

"Sewers." Clara said.

"Wha'? No. I'd like to stay one more night, at least..."

"Three days, Doctor..."

"Dun' argue."

Were five female vampires.

"You know who we are." The creepy pale girls said in unison.

"Yes. Of course." The Doctor didn't know exactly or what they actually were. "Wait, no."

"We are the members of the dark dominion."

"Oh right." The Doctor's mind drew a blank. "Sorry, you've lost me."

"Our master was trapped at the center of Krop Tor."

"No. You can't be." He felt a wave of fear, basically of the unknown. But he was more afraid of himself. There was lot he didn't understand. There were things even he couldn't explain.

"We know who you are, Doctor." They take a step toward him. He took out his sonic screwdriver, pointing it at them. "Don't come any closer."

One of them touched his shoulder and he is forced to his knees by the sheer incredible power, an ancient power, unspeakable evil.

Clara entered the room. She saw the Doctor on the floor. "Doctor." She instantly started to run to him.

"Don't come close." He warned. "My it's lonely in here." The creature inside him said, in his voice.

"No you don't. Stop it."

Clara didn't "It...it's like you're possessed."

"It's because I am."

The other 'vampires" spoke in unison. "We have seen his hearts. He's lonely. You know why he still lets you travel with him? He doesn't really care about you."

The Doctor still struggled with the demon trying to take control over him, trying to access his every dark thought. "Clara, don't listen to it."

"He can't feel anymore. That's why he needs you."

"I know the Doctor. Whatever he needs me for, I'm there for him. Nothing you say can or will change my mind."

"There's a lot of things he hasn't told you. There's a lot of things he hasn't told you. You don't know what they call him."

"What do they call him?"

"He's known among many. The calm before the storm, the fallen angel, the destroyer. The destroyer of worlds, the destroyer of hearts." Soon the valeyard and the beast."

"Clara you have to get out. They're not vampires."

"Yeah, I figured that much. There must be a way we can fight them."

"We can't. It's more than a million years old. It's trying to take me over. You gotta get it out of me."

"How?"

"Just...find something."

She left, coming back seconds later with a bucket of water. She throws the water on him.

Black smoke comes out of his mouth and the same thing happened to the other 'vampires'. The black smoke flew out the window. The young girls they were possessing dropped to the floor.

"What the hell was that?" Clara asked.

"Exactly." The Doctor started to stand up, Clara helping him. "Where's you get that?"

"From the church." Clara said.

The church across the street was where she had gotten it.

"What was in that water?" The Doctor asked the priest.

"Nothing. It's holy water. It's the only thing that really seems to work on them."

"It's got to be your strong belief, your faith." The Doctor said.

"I sense you're not a believer, Doctor."

"I'm a believer of a lot of things."

The Doctor and Clara headed for the TARDIS. "This goes beyond the Universe. Beyond me. We've got to leave."

"So Allersia just a nut job that thought he was a vampire. But the other victims were killed by whatever take over those girls." As she finished summing up the past days events, he didn't answer her.

"What it said. Was it true?"

"Of course not. Those things lie. That's what they do." He looked up from the console, at Clara. "Dun' look at me like tha'."

"What?"

"Don't sympathize an old man. You're supposed to respect him, what he's done. The stories I could tell you. You wouldn't want to hear my stories. No one wants to hear an old man's stories."

"Oh, cheer up, you old brood." Clara teased. She then looked down at the console when she sensed his eyes staring through her. "I wouldn't mind hearing some of your stories."

He dropped her off back home.

"This it then?" Clara asked. "You're leaving me now?"

He wanted to. She reminded him of the painful memories. She was a constant reminder.

But so it happens, she might be his only salvation.

Clara Oswald. She was still impossible to him, but in a way he didn't understand her. There were a lot of things he didn't understand.

"What do you think?" He turned toward the TARDIS.

"Doctor!" As she called him he turned back to her. "What does that mean?"

"Whatever you wan' it, Oswald." He bustled off to his snog box, without looking back.


	4. Listen

AN: Note that the theme of this series seemes to be centered around fear and in my series I make it more prominate.

Clara Oswald contintued on with her life.  
>She went ahead on a date with Danny Pink that turned into a complete disaster. As she left the resturant, she found herself thinking, I could really need a time machine right about now.<br>Then she started to think. What did she did wrong. What made him leave her? She was kind of glad he did. He was always making fun of her. She feared that Danny would do the same. She would say something gastyly herself instead of keeping quiet. It was a coping mechanisms of hers. Ever since her mum had died she never had gotten close to anyone. When the Doctor had dropped into her life, she had started to grow close to him. Then he went and changed his face.

As she arrived home, he was there, waiting for her.  
>The TARDIS nearly took up her entire bedroom. He needed her head again. Clara felt like burying her head in her pillow and remaining there the rest of her life.<br>He has begun to question whether every living being has a constant companion, using the example of the 'dream' all people have - in which a hand grabs them from under the bed at night.  
>"How long have you been traveling alone?" She asks him. He does need my help.<br>The Doctor has her use the TARDIS's telepthic link so they can travel back to her childhood, to the exact point she had the dream. She gets distracted by her phone ringing and she begins to think of Danny.  
>It brings them to a children's home in Gloucester, Danny's childhood. Clara is shocked to meet Rupert Pink; Danny, as a child, before he changed his name. He changed it due to the stories of 'Dan the Soldier man, (his toy soldier.) he made up.<p>

Clara sneaks up to his room while the Doctor is talking to the caretaker. Rupert is frightened that there's something under his bed. Clara tries convince Rupert that there is nothing under his bed. They crawl underneath, only for something to sit on the bed above them.

they discover a figure underneath Rupert's blankets, and the Doctor, who suddenly appears, demands that they turn away from it and promise that they will not look at it. They do so, and it vanishes out of the door. The Doctor acknowledges the possibility that the figure could be another child playing a prank, but the alternative is that it's an unidentified entity that is not meant to be seen. He also encourages Rupert to see his fear as a "superpower," because adrenaline will empower him to overcome obstacles and foes. When Clara urges Rupert to place his toy soldiers underneath his bed as 'protection', she unintentionally inspires his later name, Danny, and his career choice, when Rupert names the lead soldier Dan. This is reinforced when, after the Doctor uses his telepathy to send Rupert to sleep, he reveals that he has wiped his memory of the events and left him only with a dream of being "Dan the soldier man"

Clara has the Doctor bring her to the restaurant, moments after her former self left. She bonds with Danny, but he becomes suspicious when she accidentally calls him Rupert; he questions how she knows his former name, and accuses her of deliberately mocking him. He storms out as a figure in a spacesuit beckons Clara back into the TARDIS. Clara thinks it's the Doctor, but he removes his helmet to reveal a man strongly resembling Danny; the Doctor identifies this man as Orson Pink, one of Earth's first time travellers, having originally come from 100 years in Clara's future. The Doctor has picked him up from the end of the universe, where he had become stranded during his travels. It is revealed that one of Orson's great grandparents told him stories about time travel and that Orson possesses the lead soldier Clara gave young Rupert earlier in the episode; he returns it to her, indicating that she is an appropriate recipient for this 'family heirloom'.

The Doctor takes Clara and Orson back to Orson's ship at the end of time, and it is revealed that Orson feared he was not alone there; the Doctor believes that the companion entity is trying to gain access to the ship because it contains the only remaining life in existence, although Orson and the Doctor are also able to offer mundane alternative explanations for the unusual phenomena the group experience. The Doctor orders Clara and Orson back into the TARDIS and attempts to confront the entity, but has to be rescued by Orson when the ship's air containment is breached. As the Doctor is unconscious and it seems that the entity is trying to enter the TARDIS, the Cloister Bell starts to ring and Clara uses the telepathic circuit to trigger the TARDIS' depature.

Exiting the TARDIS, which is in an unknown location, Clara finds herself in an old barn, where a child is in bed, crying under the covers. Clara approaches the child, but is forced to hide under the bed when two people enter and try and coax the child out of the room. Overhearing their conversation, she realises that the child is in fact the Doctor, and his guardians believe he'll have to become a soldier as he lacks the potential of a true Time Lord before leaving. Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor wakes up and notices that Clara is gone and calls out for her, causing his younger self to ask who's out there.

She had done a terrible, very horrible thing. She had grabbed the young boy's leg without meaning to.

She knew she couldn't let him look at her, time travel rules and all that.

Please, don't look, she silently begged, as she tried to think of something to keep him from looking. Then she found it, what he had hold her.

Fear is a super power. A constant companion, followed by death and destuction, (she didn't want to frighten him more) always there.

Clara understood now, the Doctor was always scared. But it made him kind. A soldier who didn't need a gun.


	5. Shroud of Sorrow

**AN: It's Nov 23, 1963, a day after the assasination of US president, JFK. The faces of the dead are everywhere. They begin to talk and scream as they try to push through into our universe and feast on the grief of a whole world in mourning. Can the Doctor dig deep enough into his own sorrow to save mankind? **

** Based on the Shroud of Sorrow novel with 11 and Clara. But with 12. I own nothing. **

** Clara discovers just how much time the Doctor has missing from his memories. All his memories of her had been complely whiped.**

She still wasn't used to him. He was a bit moody at times, blaming things on her. Well there was that one time that it was technically her fault.  
>"That." barked the Doctor, was all your fault." He tore off his sopping wet blazer, then stomped back to the console.<p>

Clara followed close behind, "What do you mean, my fault?'  
>The Doctor furiously typed co-ordinates into the keyboard. "I was really enjoying tha' and you..you made my scarf all soggy."<br>"At least you're clean. Half an hour ago you were completely covered in dirt. We both were."  
>"It's Archeology. You're supposed to get dir'y. It's part of the fun."<br>"Well, it didn't feel like fun to me."  
>"And you made sure we all knew tha' didn't ye?" He raised his hands, opening and closing his fingers,as if operating puppets. "Oh, Doctor I'm so bored and my jeans are getting all muddy." One hand mimicking Clara. "Well why don't you go back to the TARDIS until we've finished." The Doctor hand said.<br>Clara glared at one of the hands. "Is one of those supposed to be me?"  
>The Doctor raised his left hand. "This one." He glanced from one hand to the other, dropping<br>A smile spread on his face.  
>Clara laughed. They sounded like a married couple teasing each other. But he was the nagging Husband instead of the wife nagging. "I'm going to change." She turned away, skipping down the steps to the back of the room and starting to strip out of her wet clothes .The Doctor had followed her. "Eh, don't look at me."<br>When he realized what she was doing, he turned his back quickly."Sorry."He shifted his eyes,trying desperately fight the urge to look, turning his head to the side."Can ye..."His voice suddenly was high pitched. "do that somewhere else?"  
>"Your TARDIS doesn't like me." She was always moving the wardrobe room on her. "So...no." Clara slipped the sweater over her head. "you can look now."<br>He took his turn changing his clothes.  
>They climbed back up to the console Doctor sat down in the pilot chair. Clara dropped into the seat beside him.<br>"I still don't get what I did wrong." said Clara. "All I did was press a few buttons."  
>"Exactly."<br>For a moment they stopped speaking. The only sound wad the rasping hum of the engines.  
>"All right." Clara sighed. "so I pressed the wrong buttons. But what's with the bubbles and the whole sea stinking of avocado?"<br>"That's the point." The Doctor got up to change a dial. "No one knows. The Venofaxions are extinct. That's why Professor Holroyde and her team spent several months and a lot of money draining the sea so they could excavate beneath it and find out what was going on." He fiddled with the settings. "That's why I wanted to get involved in the first place. Think about it. An entire world covered in a bubble bath sea. It's fascinating! All we had to do was find a planet popula'ed by thirty-foot rubber ducks and get them together."  
>"Don't forget the giant sponge."<br>He smiled but his expression quickly fell."What's the ma'er now?" He asked. "I thought we were getting back to normal."  
>"We are." said Clara.<br>Silence again. The Doctor didn't buy it. Nothing would be normal, at least between them.  
>Then the floor jolted with a familiar boom and the console fell silent.<br>"We've landed."  
>"Where?" asked Clara. "When?"<br>"I'm not sure." The Doctor "the time circuits are still all wobbly. They won't be able to give us an accurate reading until I repair them. Untill then, there's only one way to find out where we are...or when." He bounded down the stairs and flung open the doors. "Marvelous. It's a hospital. Just the place for a Doctor."


End file.
